Hitherto, natural products of vegetal or animal origin such as concretes, absolutes, balsams or essential oils for example have been widely used in the art of perfumery for the manufacture of perfumes. Due to the extensive use of perfumed products, cosmetics for example, in our modern society or to the perfuming of new materials, the consumption of such natural products is constantly increasing. The industry is therefore often confronted with the problems of scarcity or even disappearance of some of these natural products, essential oils in particular. In this respect one can cite essential oils such as clary sage oil (Salvia sclarea) or sweet marjoram oil (Origanum Majorana), both well appreciated and extensively used in modern perfumery, especially for "masculine" lines. The production of these rather expensive essential oils eminently depends on the climatic conditions, which conditions often vary from season to season. This means that the amounts produced may be sometimes drastically reduced and that the quality of the oil can vary from one harvest to the other.
It is therefore necessary for the perfume or flavour industry to have synthetically prepared chemical compounds able to reproduce, at least partially, some of the organoleptic effects of essential oils such as those mentioned hereinabove. Such chemical compounds would have the advantage to be prepared in practically unlimited amounts and to present a constant olfactive or gustative effect.
The object of the present invention precisely consists in providing the man in the art with a new class of odoriferous chemical compounds possessing useful organoleptic properties, namely enabling the man in the art to satisfactorily reproduce, in certain instances, some of the olfactive effects typical of clary sage oil or sweet marjoram oil.
This was quite surprising in view of the prior art which did not let one assume that such tricyclic chemical compounds would develop the olfactive characters defined hereinabove. On the contrary, the prior art teaches that the compound of formula ##STR2## possesses a musky ordour--see DE-OS No. 23 07 627--, whereas compounds of formulae ##STR3## are characterized by their typically flowery, fruity and woody odour in the former case, and by their fruity, green and balsamic odour notes in the second case--see DE-OS Nos. 26 54 268 and 26 42 519, respectively.
The compound of formula ##STR4## finally, is known in the art for its typically aromatic and "medicinal" odour note, reminiscent of that of wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) or liatris--see DE-OS No. 27 37 525.